St. Landry democrat., 1887-08-20
RELIGIOUS NEWS.

RELIGIOUS NEWS.
SUMMARY OF EVENTS HAPPENING
IN THE CHURCHES.
Baron ROthschild Visiting the Colonies
in Palestine-Persian Missionaries in Hot
Water-The Mirac1e-work1ng Rabbi
A Louisiana Law-The Picking Church.
The Baron Edmund Rothschild and
wife have been visiting the various Jew
ish colonies in Palestine. In one colony,
says the american Hebrew, a peculiar
scene was enacted. The baron and bar
oness having visited every family in the
colony, he called them together and in
quired of them what he could do for
them. He was told that they had all
they needed, and had only one complaint
and this referred to their Mohammedan
neighbOrs. who not seldom stole their
cattle from the pasture, and otherwise
molested them. The baron at once
sent messengers to all the sheiks of the
neighborhood and invited them with all
their men to banquet to be given by
him in the great tent of the colony,
| They came, all of them, with music
and song, in holiday CARDS. They were
we'll received; the baron COnversed
| freely with the sheiks, $nd then invited
jpl Of Sr$n hn hif.b
was decorated for the occasion. There
I he demanded of them to swear sa-
cred oath to be hereafter the friends of the
Jewish colonists, to respect and protect
their property. The ark was opened and
all the Mohammedans swore friendship
and good faith to the colonists. All then
marched up to the great tent and par
took freely of the sumptuous banquet
spread for them. The baron asked them
what he could do for them, and the
answer was that hes should establish for
them a school, in which their children
might learn the Arabic and Turkish
reading, writing etc., and he promised
them it should be done forthwith.
Missionaries in Persia are usually in
hot water The latest news is that two
agents of the American Bible Society
have been thrown into prison. Persia's
political policy is at the root of these
prosecutions. A while ago the eldest son
of the Shah, and the most powerful gov
ernor in Persia, told a missionary that
he would be protected in his work, but
if any subject of the Shah in his district
renowned the faith of Mohammed and
embraced the new religion the con-
vert would lose his head. The chief
use of an American minister at the court
of Teheran is to keep the agents of our
missionary societies out of Jail, and at
times the Persians have expressed great
surprise that the United States repre-
sentative should make so much fuss over
two or three poor white men The trouble |
is that the Shah's supremacy partly |
rests upon the allegiance due him as the |
Defender of the Faith, and any Moham- !
medan subject who abandons his re-
ligion is held to be untrue to his tenn
poral lord and master. Still, in spite
of this potent check upon Christian
propagandism, our missionaries have
made quite a number of converts in |
Persia.
Recently the famous miracle-working |
rabbi, Abraham Jacob Friedman, of |
Sadagora, in the Russian province of |
Bukowina, died. He was believed by
tens of thousands of the orthodox Jews
in the eastern part of Europe to have
had the gift of prophecy and of working
wonders and miracles. He was the
veritable pope of the Eastern Jews, and
has often been so called. Two hours
after his death he was buried. He left
two sons, who could easily enough divide
among themselves the immense property
accumulated by their father in the pursuit
of his peculiar calling; but there was a
lively contest as to who should be con-
sidered the heir of his prophetic gifts
and Of his good will' in the business he
established A court of forty-nine Tai
mud teachers decided that the younger
son, Israel Friedman, on account of his
resemblance to his father, should be
accepted as his successor, and should pay
his older brother, Jacob Friedman, the
sum of $4,000 florins, who, in turn,
promised to take up his abode at least
three times forty-nlne miles from Sada-
CORA. This was done, and business has
been resumed at the old stand.
An official notice has been published
of the great bell for the Cathedral of
Cologne, the solemn Inauguration of
which took place recently with great
pomp The bell weighs about twenty
six tons thirteen hundred-weight. The
clappel alone weighs nearly fifteen and
three-quarters hundred-weigh Its per-
pendicular height is almost fourteen and
a-half feet its diameter at the mouth
nearly eleven and a-half feet. Twenty
two cannons taken from the French
were assigned by the Emperor William
for its manufacture. 1t will be known
as the Emperor's bell. 1t bears above
an inscription recording that "William,
the most august Emperor of the Germans
and King of the Prussians, mindful of the
heavenly help granted to him whereby he
conducted the late French war to pros
porous issue and restored the German
empire, caused cannons taken from the
French to be devoted to founding bell